I was reviewing an old blog post today and found yet another typo.

Back when I didn’t write that much, or that often, I had this “typo sense.” I feel like I was really good at spotting typos. I sometimes wondered how things could have been so poorly edited! One little typo could throw off an entire work…

At the same time, I was a little bit jealous of typo-makers. You know? People who just barrel through their writing, proofreaders be damned! I’d watch them and wonder: Why can’t I do that?

This dichotomy—typo fix, or typo flourish?—was tucked neatly into my subconscious with many other dichotomies until just recently.

Nowadays, I find myself happily making typos. I’m becoming that barrel-writer.

And it bugs me. But only a little bit.

I am pretty sure that back then, I would have happily exchanged the “typo-conscious mostly-reader” title for “typos-be-damned mostly-writer”.

There’s just nothing like the feeling of needing to dump so many ideas and concepts into a page that words themselves are equally satisfying and annoying. It’s like I’ve found a new form of breathing underwater, and some of the bubbles burst while heading to the surface. It’s fine—enough of them make it up there that the existence of life is plainly evident.

Still, to those of you who are really bothered and can’t fathom why people can’t proofread: I hear you, and can identify. I try to fix ‘em when I find ‘em.

What made the change possible

I had to ask myself: Why? What’s changed that made typos something about which I care less than ever?

I mentioned this before, but I believe it comes down to audience.

Previously, whenever I’d start a blog I would write for others. Like a performer. I’d guess that this is an issue for a lot of INTJs out there.

Eventually I learned to write for myself. Just me. And like I posted before, this blog is mostly a cherished subjective experience. I do write about what people want to read sometimes. But that mostly never worked for me.

I used to be able to tell you how to create and write a winning blog, one that ticked every box. But now I realize that there was a good reason why I never took that advice myself: My blog needed to start with me, not with “blogging,” whatever that was.

With that part straightened out, and with the work underway, it may not have appeared too blog-like at first, but it was sure up and going, and hard to stop at that.

Filed in: Thinking /70/ | Productivity /119/ | Essays /52/